The Art Of Giving

Somewhere amid all the coaching and meditation I did 2004-6, I got switched on to always being in the now. Not only that, but creating goals as something that happen right now...not something I'll think about maybe taking on later when the time is right. My state of being brings forth the future I want; so if I'm being the future I want, right now, and I mean now now, not after I've written read and reflected on this, then I will cause the future I want.

And so it was second nature to create a game when I began BJJ training. I am playing a game of getting my blue belt by August 2008, in 14 months of training. I made that number up because someone I know at my school got their blue belt in 14 months. In order to accomplish that result, I have to be someone who is a blue belt right now. What actions do I need to take to be consistent with that?

So I study my teachers, the purple belts, the blue belts, the white belts who are more experienced than I, the people who are at my level and know what I don't, and the people who are just beginning who know what I don't, the people who are just beginning who know nothing, online videos, UFC fighters, any fighters. In short, everyone. Not only the techniques of BJJ that I do not know, or the level of fitness I need to have to be able to train a lot. I study their state of being: who they are when they are rolling. People like BB, or L, or both of my teachers, all of them are very calm.

What's so pleasurable about rolling now is that I am not trying to be calm. I am actually filled with it. The more I roll, the more calm I am. I get less and less fatigued at every practice. I learn from every movement at the school. It's natural.

Tuesday I was given the opportunity to roll with my other teacher, the one who founded the school, the one with a very important black belt (like the other teacher I have written about). We went through the ten minute period in a constant state of rolling. And in this case, we were literally rolling around a lot, like tumbleweed. He was very different than my other teacher. We didn't stop. He never had me tap out, he would just make it clear when he had a submission by holding it but not finishing it, and then proceed to another position. He gave me no opportunity to be lazy; if I didn't attack, he simply took charge. He is more high-energy than the other teacher, yet remarkably similar in his approach. Like my other teacher, he was laughing, making faces and jokes, all while we were rolling. He tested my limits, and helped me refine my weak spots. He let me experiment. It was a pleasure and an honor to do work with him. And a hell of a lot of fun. Naturally.

Wednesday we did takedowns. I know one takedown, which I have never sucessfully executed, because we almost never practice from standing position. So when it was my turn to be the base in a drill, where I had to face a line of blue and white belts for a minute at a time, with no rest, I was repeatedly getting thrown to the mat. Some of the less experienced guys would be all energy; they couldn't throw me, but it was like a strength contest for 60 seconds, one that exhausted me. The next guy would just come up, tap my hand (even though I wasn't extending it to be tapped), and throw me too. I started to get a little delirious, like being on my back on the mat, after a proper fall where I absorb the impact with my arm and leg, would be a much better place to be than standing on my feet. That's when I took a break. Very natural.

Friday all rolling, no gi. Not a big class. After a few rolling periods, I got water. Everyone else had paired up, and I was odd man out. My first teacher, the one I have rolled with several times, was sitting on the mat by my side, looking up at me and wiggling his eyebrows up and down and smiling, Groucho Marx style. Instead of rolling right away, I asked him many questions. He taught me his wicked guillotine guard and escape, and another one that was just as rockin, and a few other attacks for good measure. Then we rolled. He would stop and refine my attacks. It was like going to 10 classes in the span of 10 minutes. When I free rolled with teacher, he would get my leg in guard and start tickling my feet. He did this several times, and I thought I was going to punch him; I'm extremely ticklish. I ended feeling happy.

I successfully executed the newly learned guillotine escapes with this really good white belt who likes the guillotine and usually gets me with it. I rolled with a blue belt who, after manhandling me for 8 minutes (he's stopped playing with me as if I know nothing), taught me how to do a really good arm bar from guard. Another attack for my game. When we were done, he complimented me for "very good defense on your back". My last partner was a white belt, one of the three women I've met at our school, and she and I taught each other all the moves we'd learned that week. We didn't roll (we'd rolled at the start of class), we practiced our new moves over and over and over, the way you would with your best friend. It was so natural.